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  1. Darwinism Then and Now: The Divide Over Form and Function.Michael Ruse - 2010 - Science & Education 19 (4-5):367-389.
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  • Evolutionary Psychology: The Burdens of Proof.Elisabeth A. Lloyd - 1999 - Biology and Philosophy 14 (2):211-233.
    I discuss two types of evidential problems with the most widely touted experiments in evolutionary psychology, those performed by Leda Cosmides and interpreted by Cosmides and John Tooby. First, and despite Cosmides and Tooby's claims to the contrary, these experiments don't fulfil the standards of evidence of evolutionary biology. Second Cosmides and Tooby claim to have performed a crucial experiment, and to have eliminated rival approaches. Though they claim that their results are consistent with their theory but contradictory to the (...)
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  • Chasing shadows: natural selection and adaptation.D. M. Walsh - 2000 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 31 (1):135-153.
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  • Causal Foundations of Evolutionary Genetics.Jun Otsuka - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (1):247-269.
    The causal nature of evolution is one of the central topics in the philosophy of biology. The issue concerns whether equations used in evolutionary genetics point to some causal processes or purely phenomenological patterns. To address this question the present article builds well-defined causal models that underlie standard equations in evolutionary genetics. These models are based on minimal and biologically plausible hypotheses about selection and reproduction, and generate statistics to predict evolutionary changes. The causal reconstruction of the evolutionary principles shows (...)
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  • The So-Called Extended Synthesis and Population Genetics.Lindsay R. Craig - 2010 - Biological Theory 5 (2):117-123.
    In recent years, several prominent biologists have pointed to the relatively new field of evolutionary developmental biology as evidence of an Extended Synthesis in evolutionary biology. More particularly, these biologists claim that theoretical and empirical EvoDevo research is extending the Modern Synthesis framework of evolutionary theory through investigation of evolutionarily important concepts that are not part of the framework developed during the 20th century. To describe the current changes in evolutionary biology as an Extended Synthesis, however, is incorrect. Through review (...)
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  • Lindsay Craig—The So-Called Extended Synthesis and Population Genetics : Extended Synthesis: Theory Expansion or Alternative?Massimo Pigliucci & Gerd B. Müller - 2010 - Biological Theory 5 (3):275-276.
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  • Diversifying the picture of explanations in biological sciences: ways of combining topology with mechanisms.Philippe Huneman - 2018 - Synthese 195 (1):115-146.
    Besides mechanistic explanations of phenomena, which have been seriously investigated in the last decade, biology and ecology also include explanations that pinpoint specific mathematical properties as explanatory of the explanandum under focus. Among these structural explanations, one finds topological explanations, and recent science pervasively relies on them. This reliance is especially due to the necessity to model large sets of data with no practical possibility to track the proper activities of all the numerous entities. The paper first defines topological explanations (...)
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  • Race and Biology.Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther - 2017 - In Linda Alcoff, Luvell Anderson & Paul Taylor (eds.), The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race. Routledge.
    The ontology of race is replete with moral, political, and scientific implications. This book chapter surveys proposals about the reality of race, distinguishing among three levels of analysis: biogenomic, biological, and social. The relatively homogeneous structure of human genetic variation casts doubt upon the practice of postulating distinct biogenomic races that might be mapped onto socially recognized race categories.
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  • Science is not always “self-correcting” : fact–value conflation and the study of intelligence.Nathan Cofnas - 2016 - Foundations of Science 21 (3):477-492.
    Some prominent scientists and philosophers have stated openly that moral and political considerations should influence whether we accept or promulgate scientific theories. This widespread view has significantly influenced the development, and public perception, of intelligence research. Theories related to group differences in intelligence are often rejected a priori on explicitly moral grounds. Thus the idea, frequently expressed by commentators on science, that science is “self-correcting”—that hypotheses are simply abandoned when they are undermined by empirical evidence—may not be correct in all (...)
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  • Interdisciplinary integration in biology? An overview.Wim J. van der Steen - 1990 - Acta Biotheoretica 38 (1):23-36.
    Philosophical theories about reduction and integration in science are at variance with what is happenign in science. A realistic approach to science show that possibilities for reduction and integration are limited. The classical ideal of a unified science has since long been rejected in philosophy. But the current emphasis on interdisciplinary integration in philosophy and in science shows that it survives in a different guise. It is necessary to redress the balance, specifically in biology. Methodological analysis shows that many of (...)
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  • The mind, the lab, and the field: Three kinds of populations in scientific practice.Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther, Ryan Giordano, Michael D. Edge & Rasmus Nielsen - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 52:12-21.
    Scientists use models to understand the natural world, and it is important not to conflate model and nature. As an illustration, we distinguish three different kinds of populations in studies of ecology and evolution: theoretical, laboratory, and natural populations, exemplified by the work of R.A. Fisher, Thomas Park, and David Lack, respectively. Biologists are rightly concerned with all three types of populations. We examine the interplay between these different kinds of populations, and their pertinent models, in three examples: the notion (...)
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  • Causal Foundations of Evolutionary Genetics.Jun Otsuka - 2014 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (1):axu039.
    The causal nature of evolution is one of the central topics in the philosophy of biology. The issue concerns whether equations used in evolutionary genetics point to some causal processes or purely phenomenological patterns. To address this question the present article builds well-defined causal models that underlie standard equations in evolutionary genetics. These models are based on minimal and biologically plausible hypotheses about selection and reproduction, and generate statistics to predict evolutionary changes. The causal reconstruction of the evolutionary principles shows (...)
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  • Individuals, populations and the balance of nature: the question of persistence in ecology.G. H. Walter - 2008 - Biology and Philosophy 23 (3):417-438.
    Explaining the persistence of populations is an important quest in ecology, and is a modern manifestation of the balance of nature metaphor. Increasingly, however, ecologists see populations (and ecological systems generally) as not being in equilibrium or balance. The portrayal of ecological systems as “non-equilibrium” is seen as a strong alternative to deterministic or equilibrium ecology, but this approach fails to provide much theoretical or practical guidance, and warrants formalisation at a more fundamental level. This is available in adaptation theory, (...)
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  • Human genetic diversity: Lewontin's fallacy.Anthony W. F. Edwards - 2003 - Bioessays 25 (8):798-801.
    In popular articles that play down the genetical differences among human populations, it is often stated that about 85% of the total genetical variation is due to individual differences within populations and only 15% to differences between populations or ethnic groups. It has therefore been proposed that the division of Homo sapiens into these groups is not justified by the genetic data. This conclusion, due to R.C. Lewontin in 1972, is unwarranted because the argument ignores the fact that most of (...)
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  • Characters as the units of evolutionary change.David Houle - 2000 - In Günter P. Wagner (ed.), The Character Concept in Evolutionary Biology. Academic Press. pp. 109--140.
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  • Human ethology: methods and limits.I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt - 1979 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2 (1):50-57.
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  • Ethologists do not study human evolution.S. L. Washburn - 1979 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2 (1):49-49.
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  • The ethology behind human ethology.Jack P. Hailman - 1979 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2 (1):35-36.
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  • Universality and species specificity.David L. Hull - 1979 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2 (1):38-39.
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  • What the ethologist's eye tells the ethologist's brain.Peter H. Klopfer - 1979 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2 (1):39-40.
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  • The strategy of optimality revisited.Paul J. H. Schoemaker - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (2):237-245.
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  • Optimal confusion.Stephanie Stolarz-Fantino & Edmund Fantino - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (2):234-234.
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  • Optimality as a prescriptive tool.Alexander H. G. Rinnooy Kan - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (2):230-231.
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  • Rational agents, real people and the quest for optimality.Eldar Shafir - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (2):232-232.
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  • Extremum descriptions, process laws and minimality heuristics.Elliott Sober - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (2):232-233.
    The examples and concepts that Shoemaker cites are rather heterogeneous. Some distinctions need to be drawn. An optimality thesis involves not just an ordering of options, but a value judgment about them. So let us begin by distinguishing minimality from optimality. And the concept of minimality can play a variety of roles, among which I distinguish between extremum descriptions, statements hypothesizing an optimizing process, and methodological recommendations. Finally, I consider how the three categories relate to Shoemaker’s question that “Who is (...)
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  • Avoid the push-pull dilemma in explanation.Kenneth M. Steele - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (2):233-234.
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  • The infinite regress of optimization.Philippe Mongin - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (2):229-230.
    A comment on Paul Schoemaker's target article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14 (1991), p. 205-215, "The Quest for Optimality: A Positive Heuristic of Science?" (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00066140). This comment argues that the optimizing model of decision leads to an infinite regress, once internal costs of decision (i.e., information and computation costs) are duly taken into account.
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  • Vaulting optimality.Peter Dayan & Jon Oberlander - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (2):221-222.
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  • Optimality and human memory.John R. Anderson - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (2):215-216.
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  • The essence of sociobiology.David L. Hull - 1981 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4 (2):242-243.
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  • Evolution and populations.Paul C. Mundinger - 1981 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4 (2):245-246.
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  • Levels of organization, selection, and information storage in biological and social evaluation.Donald T. Campbell - 1981 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4 (2):236-237.
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  • A multiple-level model of evolution and its implications for sociobiology.H. C. Plotkin & F. J. Odling-Smee - 1981 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4 (2):225-235.
    The fundamental tenet of contemporary sociobiology, namely the assumption of a single process of evolution involving the selection of genes, is critically examined. An alternative multiple-level, multiple-process model of evolution is presented which posits that the primary process that operates via selection upon the genes cannot account for certain kinds of biological phenomena, especially complex, learned, social behaviours. The primary process has evolved subsidiary evolutionary levels and processes that act to bridge the gap between genes and these complex behaviours. The (...)
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  • Studying dialects in songbirds: Finding the common ground.Meredith J. West & Andrew P. King - 1985 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 8 (1):117-118.
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  • Social adaptiveness in human and songbird dialects.J. K. Chambers - 1985 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 8 (1):102-104.
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  • Avian song dialects: Genetic adaptation and deceptive mimicry?William M. Shields - 1985 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 8 (1):114-115.
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  • Realism, Antirealism, and Conventionalism about Race.Jonathan Michael Kaplan & Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (5):1039-1052.
    This paper distinguishes three concepts of "race": bio-genomic cluster/race, biological race, and social race. We map out realism, antirealism, and conventionalism about each of these, in three important historical episodes: Frank Livingstone and Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1962, A.W.F. Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin (1972), and contemporary discourse. Semantics is especially crucial to the first episode, while normativity is central to the second. Upon inspection, each episode also reveals a variety of commitments to the metaphysics of race. We conclude by interrogating (...)
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  • The So-Called Extended Synthesis and Population Genetics.Lindsay R. Craig - 2010 - Biological Theory 5 (2):117-123.
    In recent years, several prominent biologists have pointed to the relatively new field of evolutionary developmental biology (EvoDevo) as evidence of an Extended Synthesis in evolutionary biology. More particularly, these biologists claim that theoretical and empirical EvoDevo research is extending the Modern Synthesis framework of evolutionary theory through investigation of evolutionarily important concepts that are not part of the framework developed during the 20th century. To describe the current changes in evolutionary biology as an Extended Synthesis, however, is incorrect. Through (...)
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  • The Fate of Darwinism: Evolution After the Modern Synthesis.David J. Depew & Bruce H. Weber - 2011 - Biological Theory 6 (1):89-102.
    We trace the history of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, and of genetic Darwinism generally, with a view to showing why, even in its current versions, it can no longer serve as a general framework for evolutionary theory. The main reason is empirical. Genetical Darwinism cannot accommodate the role of development (and of genes in development) in many evolutionary processes. We go on to discuss two conceptual issues: whether natural selection can be the “creative factor” in a new, more general framework (...)
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  • J. B. S. Haldane, Ernst Mayr and the Beanbag Genetics Dispute.Veena Rao & Vidyanand Nanjundiah - 2011 - Journal of the History of Biology 44 (2):233 - 281.
    Starting from the early decades of the twentieth century, evolutionary biology began to acquire mathematical overtones. This took place via the development of a set of models in which the Darwinian picture of evolution was shown to be consistent with the laws of heredity discovered by Mendel. The models, which came to be elaborated over the years, define a field of study known as population genetics. Population genetics is generally looked upon as an essential component of modern evolutionary theory. This (...)
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  • Fundamental laws and laws of biology.Pablo Lorenzano - 2006 - In Gerhard Ernst & Karl-Georg Niebergall (eds.), Philosophie der Wissenschaft – Wissenschaft der Philosophie. Festschrift für C.Ulises Moulines zum 60. Geburstag. Mentis. pp. 129-155.
    In this paper, I discuss the problem of scientific laws in general and laws of biology in particular. After reviewing the debate around the existence of laws in biology, I examine the subject in the light of the structuralist notion of a fundamental law and argue for the law of matching as the fundamental law of genetics.
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  • Pluralism in evolutionary controversies: styles and averaging strategies in hierarchical selection theories.Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther, Michael J. Wade & Christopher C. Dimond - 2013 - Biology and Philosophy 28 (6):957-979.
    Two controversies exist regarding the appropriate characterization of hierarchical and adaptive evolution in natural populations. In biology, there is the Wright-Fisher controversy over the relative roles of random genetic drift, natural selection, population structure, and interdemic selection in adaptive evolution begun by Sewall Wright and Ronald Aylmer Fisher. There is also the Units of Selection debate, spanning both the biological and the philosophical literature and including the impassioned group-selection debate. Why do these two discourses exist separately, and interact relatively little? (...)
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  • Extended Synthesis: Theory Expansion or Alternative?Gerd B. Müller & Massimo Pigliucci - 2010 - Biological Theory 5 (3):275-276.
    A response to Lindsay Craig's essay, The So-Called Extended Synthesis and Population Genetics.
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  • Making race out of nothing : psychologically constrained social roles.Ron Mallon & Daniel Kelly - 2012 - In Harold Kincaid (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Social Science. Oxford University Press.
    Race is one of the most common variables in the social sciences, used to draw correlations between racial groups and numerous other important variables such as education, healthcare outcomes, aptitude tests, wealth, employment and so forth. But where concern with race once reflected the view that races were biologically real, many, if not most, contemporary social scientists have abandoned the idea that racial categories demarcate substantial, intrinsic biological differences between people. This, in turn, raises an important question about the significance (...)
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  • Spirit, method, and content in science and religion: The theological perspective of a geneticist.Lindon Eaves - 1989 - Zygon 24 (2):185-216.
    There are three ways in which bridges may be built between science and theology: spirituality, methodology, and content. Spirituality is the power which drives each to address reality and the expectations with which each approaches the pursuit of truth. The methodology of science is summarized in terms of three activities: taxonomy; the hypothetico‐deductive cycle; derivative technology. The content of science, especially with respect to the phenomena of givenness, connectedness and openness in the life sciences, is correlated with theological constructs. Attention (...)
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  • The new mutation theory of phenotypic evolution.Masatoshi Nei - 2007 - Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104 (30):12335-12242.
    Recent studies of developmental biology have shown that the genes controlling phenotypic characters expressed in the early stage of development are highly conserved and that recent evolutionary changes have occurred primarily in the characters expressed in later stages of development. Even the genes controlling the latter characters are generally conserved, but there is a large component of neutral or nearly neutral genetic variation within and between closely related species. Phenotypic evolution occurs primarily by mutation of genes that interact with one (...)
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  • Explanatory independence and epistemic interdependence: A case study of the optimality approach.Angela Potochnik - 2010 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (1):213-233.
    The value of optimality modeling has long been a source of contention amongst population biologists. Here I present a view of the optimality approach as at once playing a crucial explanatory role and yet also depending on external sources of confirmation. Optimality models are not alone in facing this tension between their explanatory value and their dependence on other approaches; I suspect that the scenario is quite common in science. This investigation of the optimality approach thus serves as a case (...)
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  • Natural selection and history.John Beatty & Eric Cyr Desjardins - 2009 - Biology and Philosophy 24 (2):231-246.
    In “Spandrels,” Gould and Lewontin criticized what they took to be an all-too-common conviction, namely, that adaptation to current environments determines organic form. They stressed instead the importance of history. In this paper, we elaborate upon their concerns by appealing to other writings in which those issues are treated in greater detail. Gould and Lewontin’s combined emphasis on history was three-fold. First, evolution by natural selection does not start from scratch, but always refashions preexisting forms. Second, preexisting forms are refashioned (...)
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  • Survival with an asymmetrical brain: Advantages and disadvantages of cerebral lateralization.Giorgio Vallortigara & Lesley J. Rogers - 2005 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28 (4):575-589.
    Recent evidence in natural and semi-natural settings has revealed a variety of left-right perceptual asymmetries among vertebrates. These include preferential use of the left or right visual hemifield during activities such as searching for food, agonistic responses, or escape from predators in animals as different as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. There are obvious disadvantages in showing such directional asymmetries because relevant stimuli may be located to the animal's left or right at random; there is no a priori association (...)
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  • A framework for the unification of the behavioral sciences.Herbert Gintis - 2007 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (1):1-16.
    The various behavioral disciplines model human behavior in distinct and incompatible ways. Yet, recent theoretical and empirical developments have created the conditions for rendering coherent the areas of overlap of the various behavioral disciplines. The analytical tools deployed in this task incorporate core principles from several behavioral disciplines. The proposed framework recognizes evolutionary theory, covering both genetic and cultural evolution, as the integrating principle of behavioral science. Moreover, if decision theory and game theory are broadened to encompass other-regarding preferences, they (...)
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